The sun shines, snow falls, mountains rise and valleys sink, night deepens and pales into day, but it is only very seldom that we attend to such things. . . . When we are grasping the inexpressible meaning of these things, this is life, this is living. To do this twenty-four hours a day is the Way of Haiku. It is having life more abundantly.

Reginald Horace Blyth

Categorized in : Fall Life Night

Thus we see that the all important thing is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is how we win, how we lose, how we live or die, finally, how we choose.

Reginald Horace Blyth

drinking life country

The establishment of inner harmony is to be attained neither in the past nor in the future, but where the past and future meet, which is the now. When you have attained that point, neither future nor past, neither birth nor death, neither time nor space exist. It is that NOW which is liberation, which is perfect harmony, to which the men of the past and the men of the future must come.

Reginald Horace Blyth

space men past

If all men lead mechanical, unpoetical lives, this is the real nihilism, the real undoing of the world.

Reginald Horace Blyth

real men life

I myself think that to have a cat is more important than to have a Bible.

Reginald Horace Blyth

cat important thinking

A haiku is the expression of a temporary enlightenment, in which we see into the life of things.

Reginald Horace Blyth

enlightenment expression life

There is no greater difference between men than between grateful and ungrateful people.

Reginald Horace Blyth

ungrateful-people gratitude thanksgiving

Nothing divides one so much as thought.

Reginald Horace Blyth

divides

The love of nature is religion, and that religion is poetry; these three things are one thing. This is the unspoken creed of haiku poets.

Reginald Horace Blyth

three love religion

There is a Hindu myth about the Self or God of the universe who sees life as a form of play. But since the Self is what there is and all that there is and thus has no one separate to play with, he plays the cosmic game of hide-and-seek with himself. He takes on the roles and masks of individual people such as you and I and thus becomes involved in exciting and terrifying adventures, all the time forgetting who he really is.

Reginald Horace Blyth

true-identity self-esteem dream

Regarding R. H. Blyth: For translations, the best books are still those by R. H. Blyth. . . .

Reginald Horace Blyth

translations stills book

These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.

Reginald Horace Blyth

loneliness appreciation love

What is Zen? Zen is looking at things with the eye of God, that is, becoming the thing's eyes so that it looks at itself with our eyes.

Reginald Horace Blyth

becoming eye looks

The object of our lives is to look at, listen to, touch, taste things. Without them, - these sticks, stones, feathers, shells, - there is no Deity.

Reginald Horace Blyth

smell looks religion

Think of Zen, of the Void, of Good and Evil and you are bound hand and foot. Think only and entirely and completely of what you are doing at the moment and you are free as a bird.

Reginald Horace Blyth

feet hands thinking

Mud is the most poetical thing in the world.

Reginald Horace Blyth

nature earth world

A thief running away like mad from a ferocious watch-dog may be a splendid example of Zen.

Reginald Horace Blyth

mad dog running

The importance and unimportance of the self cannot be exaggerated.

Reginald Horace Blyth

exaggerated importance self

Regarding R. H. Blyth: Blyth is sometimes perilous, naturally, since he's a high-handed old poem himself, but he's also sublime - and who goes to poetry for safety anyway.

Reginald Horace Blyth

sublime safety poetry

What is essential is not the answer but the questions; the answers indeed are the death of the life that is in the questions.

Reginald Horace Blyth

essentials answers

Zen is the unsymbolization of the world.

Reginald Horace Blyth

wisdom world